SCRIBAL PRACTICES AND APPROACHE S ... - Emanuel Tov

298 Appendix 5
P.Yale Beinecke 544 of 1 Samuel 24–2 Samuel 1 (4–5 CE).
In the case of the later manuscripts A, B, S, and Q, which form the basis of the study of Korpel–de Moor, Structure,
it is even more difficult to invoke the antiquity of the Greek tradition, as the Christian scribes of these late
manuscripts probably would not have had access to the earlier Hebrew traditions.
In Greek inscriptions, the high dot ( ˙ ), dicolon ( : ), tricolon (three vertical dots), as well as various
additional graphic signs (see especially Threatte, Attic Inscriptions, 73–94), were used regularly from the seventh
century BCE onwards to indicate small or large sense divisions, while in papyri this system was developed further.
Thus in the punctuation system devised by Aristophanes of Byzantium (c. 257–180 BCE), and recorded by Aristotle,
Rhet. 3.8.1409a.20, different values were assigned to the dot as it stood above the line (a full stop), in the middle of
the line (a comma), or on the line (a semicolon). See Hall, Companion, 13; Gardthausen, Griechische
Palaeographie, II.400; Schubart, Palaeography, 173; Kenyon, Palaeogra-phy, 28; Pfeiffer, History, 180; Turner,
Greek Manuscripts, documents 20, 21, and index, with examples from manuscripts from the second century CE
onwards; D. C. Parker, Codex Bezae: An Early Christian Manuscript and its Text (Cambridge 1992) 31–4. The
high dots were often inserted by a later hand, as illustrated by a papyrus of Homer’s Iliad presented in Turner, Greek
Papyri, pl. IV.
B. Indication of sections
See ch. 5a.
C. Special writing of the divine names
The limited evidence for special writing of the divine names points to differences between Jewish and Christian
texts.
• Jewish texts display the Tetragrammaton in various ways, see ch. 5d.
• Christian scribes employed k(uvrio)", together with other abbreviated nomina sacra. 364 See the penultimate
column in the table.
As expected, early Jewish copies of Greek Scripture reflect some scribal phenomena of the Hebrew manuscripts
from which the Greek translation was made. However, with the transmission of this translation by Christian scribes,
these features were contaminated and in many cases can no longer be recognized. This pertains to the following
features: indication of small sense units (verses) and sections with spacing, and the writing of the divine names in
Hebrew characters. Several new features were introduced that reflected the Greek writing tradition (graphic indicators
for the indication of verses; paragraphos signs; ekthesis) or early Christian practices (abbreviated nomina sacra).
364 The isolated case of the unabbreviated kuvrio" in P.Oxy. 4.656 of Genesis 14–27 (2 or 3 CE) is unclear. In this
manuscript the spaces left by the original scribe were filled in by a second scribe with kuvrio".